A first group of 400 vulnerable Dinkas will tomorrow begin the final leg of their long journey home from Juba in Sudan’s Central Equatoria to Bor, in Jonglei province. The group, consisting of elderly, disabled, expectant mothers and women with young children, will board an IOM chartered double-decker ferry for a 14-hour journey up the White Nile. “The state-owned ferry needed some major renovation work before it could be used for the return operation,” says IOM’s Louis Hoffmann, who is coordinating the return operation in Juba. “We first had to install water and sanitation systems, refurbish resting areas and purchase 500 lifejackets. Despite our best efforts, the engine could not be started. So the ferry will actually be pushed by a tugboat.” IOM staff will provide medical assistance during the journey. Over the next two months, IOM plans to organise up to 12 rotations between Juba and Bor to assist some 4,200 vulnerable internally displaced persons (IDPs). They are part of a much larger group of some 12,000 Dinkas who fled Bor for Maridi, in Western Equatoria some 14 years ago to escape fighting between Sudanese government forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Following the signing of the peace agreement on January 2005 and the subsequent handover of Bor to the government of Southern Sudan, the group decided to return on foot to Bor, via Juba, with up to half a million cattle, their prized possession. The Dinkas and their cattle have already crossed the White Nile at Juba and are travelling northwards to Bor on the river’s east bank. Several cattle camps are reportedly already on the outskirts of Bor. At the request of the government of South Sudan and in coordination with the UN, IOM has already provided ground transportation for vulnerable IDPs from various areas west of Juba to an UNHCR-run way station in the city. The World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA) are providing food, medicine and medical care at the way station. The UN and various NGOs will provide reintegration assistance upon arrival in Bor. Although hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese displaced by the conflict are estimated to have returned to their homes, this is the second large group of IDPs who have received IOM’s return assistance. Last summer IOM provided assistance to the most vulnerable among a group of 5,000 people trekking through dense forests and swamps to their homes in Raja in Western Bahr el Ghazal. There are an estimated six million internally displaced people in Sudan, four million of them displaced by the 21-year conflict in the south. For further information, please contact: Louis Hoffmann IOM Juba Tel: +882 16433 38260 Email: "mailto:lhoffman@iom.int" target="_blank" title= "">lhoffman@iom.int